Author: blueZhift

Categories
Tech

Playing DVD Movies On Ubuntu

After several weeks of trying and Googling, I finally got DVD movies to play on my Ubuntu box! Like some crazy voodoo, I’m not entirely sure what incantation finally got things to work, but so that others may benefit, I record it here.

Initially I had Xine-ui, totem-xine, and libdvdcss installed and I thought that was all that I needed. But whenever I tried to play one of my movie DVDs, Xine and totem would act as if they couldn’t even find libdvdcss at all.

Thinking that there was something wrong with the movie players, I decided to try VLC. That didn’t work for me either, but that may have been because I couldn’t figure out how to start it, duh. Before figuring that out I took a look at the Ubuntu Wiki’s Restricted Formats page. On that page I found more information and a link to the w32 codecs. Since I run into a lot of Windows format media files, I figured these codecs would be useful.

After installing the w32 codecs, lo and behold, I could play DVD movies in Xine and Totem! At this point I didn’t even try to figure out VLC because I was happy to finally get what I wanted!

From the above, I’m guessing that I needed both libdvdcss and w32codecs to make it all work, which had not at all been clear from everything else I had read previously, again duh. But I also wonder if VLC brought something extra to the party that sealed the deal. Eventually I may do some experimenting to find out, but for now I’ve got one more Revolutionary Girl Utena disc to finish watching!

Categories
General

Brush With Fame: Martha Stewart

Yesterday my lunch time walk took me to my favorite Borders. I had some coupons so I wanted to see if there was anything in that I wanted like a new installment of one of the way too many manga I’ve been reading. I didn’t find anything compelling so I headed upstairs to see if there were any interesting DVDs on the 3rd level.

Upon reaching the escalator to the DVD section, I was confronted and blocked by two youngish guys in dark suits. They informed me that Martha Stewart was doing a book signing, but they did not have room for any more people to join the event. I stupidly asked them if she was really up there even after just being told that she was, duh. One of them offered to get any DVD I wanted to buy, but since I was just browsing, I declined. Since I didn’t actually get to see Martha Stewart, I suppose that technically this isn’t a brush with fame, but heck, I just wanted to write something. Is that so wrong?

Categories
Games and Sports

Sony Rootkit CD Debacle May Hurt Playstation 3

In what continues to be a major PR setback for Sony, Sony has decided to recall all of their copy protected CDs which include the now infamous rootkit. It’s kind of funny that all by themselves, Sony has managed to add the previously obscure hacker term, "rootkit", to the public lexicon.

This could not have come at a worst time for Sony with respect to promoting the Playstation 3 as Microsoft launches the Xbox 360 next week. Up until now, Sony had been fairly vocal about their next generation console in an attempt to avoid losing mindshare during the 360 launch. But since the rootkit story broke, I haven’t seen anything about the PS 3. There are already rumors that the PS 3 will not launch in the U.S. until fall 2006 at the earliest. As for Microsoft, they get the double bonus because Sony can’t hype the PS 3 during the 360 launch and Microsoft has offered software to remove the Sony rootkit from PCs. Apple gets a double bonus too because the copy protected CDs can’t install the rootkit on Macs and Sony will also have a hard time promoting sometimes iPod competitor PSP with the controversy grabbing the headlines. In short, Sony’s competitors have gotta love this!

I hope that Sony will learn a lesson from this and stop treating their customers like criminals. The real pirates will never be stopped by some rinky dink copy protection. Now Sony faces millions of dollars in costs associated with the recall and the inevitable class action lawsuits. And they have lost a lot of good will as well. I for one will think twice about any future purchases of Sony electronics and I certainly won’t be buying any Sony CDs either.

Categories
General

Brush With Fame: Carol Marin

Often I feel a bit like Forest Gump. Like him, I seem to find myself in the vicinity of famous people or events with a greater frequency than average. Today on my lunch time walk, I happened to pass right by newscaster and journalist Carol Marin, who is best known in the Chicago area as the longtime anchor for NBC’s WMAQ TV station. She and co-anchor Ron Magers resigned in protest when then station management planned to add Jerry Springer as a regular commentator. This led to a station shake up and ratings tumbled that I don’t feel like they ever recovered from.

Anyway, Carol still looks pretty good! She was wearing a short skirt and these really nice boots. One thing that surprised me was how short she is. On TV she looked much taller. Her old co-anchor (who I’ve also passed on the street) isn’t much taller. As always, I kept quiet, looking just long enough to convey the message that I recognized her, but was not going to bug her. I figure that famous people have enough problems with fans, so when I encounter them like this, I don’t bother them. I guess you could say I’m a fan of Ms. Marin’s work and I guess of her too! <3

Categories
Tech

Windows Cleaning

Since I started using Ubuntu Linux a few weeks ago, my Windows XP installation has fallen into a sad state of disrepair. Like many who install a Linux partition, I’ve found myself wanting to do all of my work (and fun) there. Unfortunately, there are a few tools that I must still use Windows for, such as Dreamweaver. I haven’t found a good Linux replacement for DW yet (Nvu doesn’t do the trick for me), so for serious site work I have to boot Windows. Well after losing about 20 minutes of work due to a spontaneous reboot, I was pretty pissed with Windows. So I did what many Windows users do, started scanning and cleaning like mad. Me and Norton got reaquainted and turned up one trojan along with numerous registry errors and broken shortcuts. Ugh. I really hate using Windows these days…

Categories
Anime, Manga, Etc

American Newspapers Adding Manga Style Comics

American newspapers are planning to carry manga-style comics early next year. Without getting into a big fight over what constitutes manga, this is more evidence of the popularity of manga in the U.S. now and the need for newspapers to avoid extinction as their average reader age has reached 53 an continues to rise.

The real question is not whether or not the Japanese manga influenced American creations are manga or not. The real question is whether the very vocal conservative body of Americans will allow the kind of different, often deep or dark stories that characterize a lot of manga, to live in U.S. newspapers. One of the things I love about manga is wide breadth of subject matter and styles. Anything can be in manga, from big eyed, super cute, magical girls, to hardcore, kick-ass, gonna be the greatest high school teacher ever, thugs! Can Middle America handle this? And don’t get me started on shonen ai!

I can’t wait to see how this all turns out. If they carry good stories that fans of manga will appreciate, then they will see daily paper sales go up. If they water things down then they could actually crater sales by not only losing the manga fans, but also losing readers outraged than they are carrying manga style comics in the first place. So it’s actually a big risk, but given that the alternative is eventual extinction, it may be worth it. Heck, I may pick up some papers myself.

Categories
Anime, Manga, Etc

Boondocks OTH!

It’s official, the Boondocks is OTH, off the hook! I’ve watched the first episode twice and laughed my head off both times. It really reminded me of some of the best of Sanford and Son with its use of vulgar/common language addressing sensitive subjects. But clearly the Boondocks has a far more militant tone than Sanford and Son would have been allowed if that were the aim of the series. So really any similarities between the two series are mostly superficial. The Boondocks has a lot more going on under the hood than Sanford and Son (or Family Guy for that matter) and the first episode out is good sign of things to come. I only wonder if it will get too hot even for Adult Swim to continue showing. Afterall, we don’t want the white people to riot! Nothing a little cheese couldn’t handle though, maybe some gouda.. 🙂

Best line: I’m gonna find me a white man and lie to him right now! –Granddad

Categories
Games and Sports

Xbox 360 Countdown

Just 16 days from now the Xbox 360 launches in the U.S.. I currently have no plans to buy one any time soon, so why am I so excited? I’ve already got a big backlog of games waiting to be beat, so why should I care? Well part of it is that I tend to take a dim sum approach to gaming, eating a little here and tasting a bit there. So in a year’s time I may have a 360, but my main excitement is in watching the battle between Microsoft and Sony for the hearts and minds (and money) of gamers all over the world.

I really want to see the 360 succeed and snatch 1st place from Sony because in the end it will mean better games for everyone and I’d love to see an American company snatch back what Atari fumbled away so many years ago. That said though, I’m not a big nationalist by any means. Heck, I’m listening to J-Pop tunes while typing this. But I guess it is very American to root for the underdog, even if it is the often reviled Microsoft. I’d especially love to see the 360 make it big in Japan. Many believe that a gaijin (foreign) console could never make it in Japan. But I believe that the Japanese gamer is bigger than that and will be happy to buy a 360 if it has games he/she wants to play. 1up.com has an interesting article right now that draws comparisons between the Dreamcast and the 360 that in light of the DC’s failure are a little chilling. But they also point out some important and compelling reasons that Xbox 360 may succeed where the DC failed.

Dreamcast 2.0: Is Xbox 360 the second coming of the Sega Dreamcast?

Categories
Games and Sports

Video Game Music Jilts Me Again!

A couple of days ago I received the sad news that the remaining shows of the Video Games Live concert tour had been cancelled. It just seems that whenever I want to hear and see the music of video games performed live, some mishap occurs. Perhaps it just isn’t meant to be… Naaah! They just over estimated the audience and didn’t do enough marketing. I never saw any sign of marketing beyond the web site and I think restricting themselves to a few large markets would have made more sense. Yes, video games are big now, but you still have to do good marketing. Some ads on Adult Swim, G4, and the Anime Network would have helped.

I don’t know if they’ll revive the tour or not, but I definitely won’t be buying any tickets far in advance the next time.

Categories
General

My Inner Wilma

Yesterday I celebrated my 14th wedding anniversary by enjoying some great dim sum with my Mrs. in Chinatown. The day before that I had spent some time looking for a nice gift for her. I found a nice card and ultimately opted for a Borders gift card because I thought she might enjoy choosing something herself this year. The day was good.

This morning I woke up all bummed out because in all of fun of yesterday, she had not given me a card or present at all. As hard as I tried to suppress the emotion, I totally failed and things just blew up. I felt like Wilma Flintstone in one of those episodes where Fred has forgotten all about their anniversary in order to play golf or something. What a strange role reversal indeed.

In the end, we had lunch again today and I got some really cool books from Virgin, including Kaiju Big Battel! But I think I’m gonna be Wilma for a long time, but that’s okay I guess, since I like redheads too! XD

Categories
Games and Sports

WTF? PSP Media Manager Not Free!

The good news is that Sony has released PSP Media Manager which reportedly makes managing media on the PSP a lot easier than it is now. The bad news is that they are charging $19.95 to download the software!

WTF? I wrestled with getting movie clips and music on my PSP last night and while it is not that hard for the tech saavy and the determined to do this, I couldn’t help but think about how easy it is to do the same kinds of things with my iPod. Apple didn’t charge me extra in order to make using the device they sold me easier. When is Sony going to wake up and realize that the iPod is a major competitor to the PSP and that ease of use should not be something that you have to pay extra for?

Categories
General

Alito Good For Democrats

Now that Bush has nominated someone qualified for the Supreme Court, the real fight is on. Judge Alito has shown himself to be firmly on the right and a backer of government power over individual freedom. Obviously the Democrats will fight this, but I say don’t fight too hard and go ahead and confirm the guy. People never understand what freedom is until someone takes it away from them.

If Alito tips the court to the right and Roe v. Wade is reversed and other freedoms, such as the right to privacy and 1st Amendment rights are chipped away, then maybe the country will finally wake up and realize what kind of fools they keep electing. Conservative law makers will no longer be able to write and pass anti-abortion laws safe in the knowledge that the Supreme Court will  over turn them. The fight will finally be a real one, and if the polls are any indication, most Americans do not want restrictive anti-abortion laws. If the Democrats get their act together and run as the champions of freedom, they should clean up very nicely.

Categories
General

My Desperate Housewife

Today begins a new and probably short era. My wife, the lovely WillowBrow, has left her job and for now at least is playing the role of housewife while looking for new opportunities. I don’t think it will take her long to do this, but I kind of wonder how long it will be before the very different world of stay at home moms drives her nuts.

No offense to stay at home moms, but it really is a different world from all I’ve seen of it. We’ve talked about the differences on numerous occasions, but it is only now that it occurs to me that there’s no reason that those in the world of office work should completely understand those in the world of "house work" or vice versa. They’re different worlds with different rules and customs.

Okay, so now that I’ve written enough to be royally flamed, I’ll stop now!

Categories
General

Ack! Sulu Is Gay!

Well actually, it was actor George Takei, who played Mr. Sulu on Star Trek, who revealed in an interview that he is gay. As far as I know, Mr. Sulu is straight. Now that said, let’s go off on a fun tangent!

In the original series episode, "Mirror Mirror", Captain Kirk and the landing party find themselves in an alternate universe due to a transporter malfunction. In this mirror universe, their counterparts are essentially barbaric opposites to our peace loving, noble crew. The mirror universe Sulu is particularly aggressive and in one scene leaves no doubt that he’d like to get busy with the very fine Lt. Uhura, right on the bridge…yow!

So, maybe there was more to this that meets the eye. If the mirror universe Sulu was aggressively straight, then maybe our Sulu actually is, wait for it….Nah, too easy, never mind. Besides, how would you explain Captain Kirk?

Anyhow, I must say that I am neither shocked nor surprised by this announcement because I never really thought about it. George Takei was the first Star Trek cast member I ever saw in person and one of my favorites. He’s just a really cool guy. And most recently I’ve greatly enjoyed the voice work he’s done in animated productions such as Mulan, Avatar: The Last Air Bender, and others. So I hope that his announcement won’t cause too much trouble for him. I can only imagine how painful it must have been to keep such a secret for so long. Human beings seem to have an inherent need to express themselves to each other. Denying that can only bring suffering to the soul.

Categories
General

Ubuntu Shows Some Love

While my honeymoon with Ubuntu Linux may be over, the love continues after nearly a month of use. Let me just say right up front that while Ubuntu is great on the desktop, this is still not the OS for your grandma! No offense to grandma or Ubuntu, but there are still a number of things that are easier to do in Windows or a Mac. The biggest problem is with multimedia. I still can’t get DVDs to play and setting up sound and screen resolution was more of a pain than it should have been. This isn’t a big problem for me because I actually like the challenge of solving these problems, but the average consumer won’t be so amused.

Still, I really really like Ubuntu! With the strength of Debian behind it, updates are a breeze. And heck, if I ever get some time maybe I can write some stuff that will address some of the shortcomings I mentioned above. I think though that one of the best things about Ubuntu for me is that when I’m using it, I feel like I’ve got control of my computer again! Just last night I was able to get the Cisco VPN client to work with some help from a poster in the German Ubuntu Forum. I don’t read German, but it was almost too easy and a bit ironic since I had been unable to get this to work using Knoppix a release or two ago. Knoppix is a popular German (though it is available in English too) Debian based distribution, probably best known for popularizing live CDs to demonstrate and test Linux. Knoppix is pretty good and got me hooked on Debian, but Ubuntu has really sealed the deal for me! Now if I can just get these pesky DVDs to play…